Our Roll On Planet Earth

On planet Earth the human race is not a greater being, we are just one of the creatures that share this planet, unfortunately our intellectual egos get in the way of this understanding. Instead of intelligently and consciously managing the ecosystems we take the planet for granted. Sadly the earth is not considered sacred, we don’t truly believe its a place to honour and nurture. Humans look at it as a place with resources, something we own and have the rights to exploit, to create trade to show supremacy over one an other regardless of consequence, including conflicts among ourselves over false boarders or self proclaimed godly rights.

Our neglect is resulting in climate change which is altering the pattern of life on the planet, causing species extinction, forcing unnatural migration and behaviour changes. How many changes do you recognize in your own communities at home or at the cottage. How many plants, insects and animals are harder to find or have gone, and how many are new that have migrated in. A changing climate forces many plants and animals to migrate in order to survive.

Seagulls gather at first morning light.

To make matters worse, on land human settlements and infrastructure have already subdivided ecosystem habitats into isolated patches. One study looked at whether species can migrate quickly enough to survive in a rapidly changing climate or habitat. It found that Canada is likely to be one of the hardest hit because of its northern location, and that more than 45 per cent of Canada’s habitat could be lost by the end of this century, resulting in a 20 per cent loss of species in vulnerable ecosystems, such as the Arctic and boreal forests.

Research has shown that most plant species are only able to migrate at 1/10th of the speed required to keep up with human-induced environmental changes. We are not only influencing land surface conditions the research is showing that at current rates we will cause a near extinction of a great number of the wild fish species we are used to consuming within the next 40 years.

The resulting climate changes will make many of these ecosystems uninhabitable, here are a couple of specific issues:

* Canada’s increasingly dry Northern arboreal forests, stretching across the Canadian Shield, have seen burns escalate from one-million hectares to three-million in the last decade.
* Female caribou migrate in Spring to small pockets of vegetation where they feed and raise their new borne calves. But for the past decade, spring has come so early that by the time the caribou reach the coastal plain, their principal food plant has already gone to seed.
* A receding Arctic icecap and earlier-than-normal breakup of sea ice has affected polar bears, which depend on sea ice to hunt seals. Recent studies shows polar bears in some regions are down a third in body weight. The latest generation of seals have also been found to be much thinner than usual.

We are quick to condemn corporate mishaps such as oil spills and other news worthy chemical fires and contamination’s to a-point blame and shame but what have you done to change your demand for these products. If you are complacent and not proactive you are part of the problem that has helped to caused these issues. Do not be afraid of learning slowly, be afraid of not learning, effect change one by one and be a positive part of the future for our children and our children’s children. Play your part in the health of humanity and our planet.

As humans we have an intellect that can dream and dreams can effect creative evolution. We need to dream of how we can create a better place to harmonize with our earth and each other, but do we truly have the will to do it?

Thank you to Dr. David Suzuki for the work you do to enlighten our understanding of the world we live in.